/m/aroldis_chapman

Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

This is a terrible article. It's got nothing to say and takes several pages to say it. Synopsis: Chapman, experiencing freedom and wealth for the first time, has engaged in some immature behavior. The author cherry picks some stats and some quotes to support a thesis that this all affects Chapman's performance but even putting all his weight on the scale, the author presents a thoroughly unconvincing case.

It is however an excellent example of so much that is wrong with journalism these days.

I don't know that I'm quite as convinced as Walt that this is a terrible article but it was certainly odd. For such a long piece it was not particularly insightful. I'm sure a lot of people out there don't know all the stories (the speeding tickets, the stripper thing, etc...) but there is no coherent thread through the article. It's like an 8th graders term paper, the guy never puts forth a clear theme to the article.

I will say that having been to Cuba that the cultural differences are enormous. In my experience (my father was born in Cuba) there is a sense of family and togetherness in Cubans that doesn't exist as consistently in other cultures. I realize that's a generalization and subject to the limitations that all generalizations are but it's my experience both in my family and in the families of Cuban friends.

Under the Obama administration it has become comparatively easier to send money and care packages to Cuba. For all anybody knows Chapman may be taking great care of his family, but some in Miami find it peculiar that he hasn’t brought them over—especially his girlfriend and the now-3-year-old daughter he still hasn’t met. “That’s when I knew it wasn’t the fairy tale story,” says Joe Kehoskie, a Florida-based sports agent who’s worked with Cuban players for more than a decade. “The two people he cared about the most are still sitting in communist Cuba.”

Communist Cuba: Geographically a place that lies as close to Miami as Cincinnati does to Louisville, but in every other sense seems so very far away. Chapman has gone through not just culture shock but culinary shock, linguistic shock, even financial shock. More than that, he’s had to transition from a communist country to a capitalist one. “When you don’t have any freedom,” says Ebro, himself a native of Cuba, “and you come to a place with freedom…” The journalist pauses. “Not everyone reacts in a good way.”

So it makes sense that Chapman might show up late for a game at Triple-A or strike up a relationship with a stripper. It’s a free country, after all. And then there’s Cuba’s other big legacy: From the day Chapman walked out of that hotel in Rotterdam, he has been pursued and preyed upon. Consider how he was lured to the Hendricks brothers. Rodney Fernandez, a former Cuban baseball player the agency had hired to attract more Latin American players, gave Chapman the hard sell. According to the lawsuit Mejia’s agency brought against the Hendricks brothers, Fernandez repeatedly called and sent Chapman texts that undermined Mejia and Thompson. While those two made their own share of mistakes in their relationship with Chapman, Fernandez was a different kind of trouble. At the same time he was trying to lure Chapman to the Hendricks agency, according to the Coral Springs Police Department, he is alleged to have stolen more than $300,000 from Kendry Morales. (Fernandez has pled not guilty and a trial for grand theft is pending. He no longer works for Hendricks Sports Management and the company is not implicated in the case.)

All of these factors contribute to Chapman’s paradoxical mindset. It’s why he could tell a reporter that “Life here has shown me you can’t trust anybody,” only to start dating (and to some degree, trusting) Claudia Manrique a few weeks later. In Miami, Chapman continues to hang out not with teammates or other athletes but with “people who remind me of Rodney Fernandez,” says Joe Kehoskie. [Emphasis added]

Unless other work by this author raises questions, I don't see any reason to diss the article. Seems like it involved a fair amount of leg work, especially given the lack of cooperation by Chapman and the Reds. Is any of the info wrong? There is a suggestion that Chapman's a bit of a knucklehead, but that seems to be a legitimate concern. He could still turn out fine, short-term and long-term, but it takes more than talent, which Chapman certainly doesn't lack. RTFA.

The first two paragraphs are about a single time that Chapman celebrated a big save by doing a double somersault. The author concludes: "that double-somersault underlined how little we know about the Reds’ Cuban import."

That's one of the most ridiculous lines you'll ever read. It also sets the tone for the entire article:

a) for no good reason, we have the right to know a lot about Chapman. Therefore the fact that the author can't find out anything is a sign of a problem.
b) the author will go to any lengths to cherry pick incidents then interpret them to put Chapman in a bad light.

Next we get the story of the Reds trying to limit this guy's access. I'll take his word for it that this is unusual behavior by a team but (a) it strikes me as understandable that they want to keep Chapman out of the press's eye and (b) given this hit piece, maybe they had a good idea what piece the author was going to write. The author then states:

"he appears to be one of the most risky and fragile players the team has had in a long time."

Meaning what? At this point I was expecting the article to go off into the fragility of young pitchers, that he has an inverted W, that he lost velocity as the year went on, something.

Nope, he means this:

"But that season included enough off-field drama—a speeding ticket and arrest, a convoluted lawsuit, a murky incident with a stripper—to fill one of the telenovelas Chapman loves to watch. And that’s not all: From the time he started pitching in Cuba all the way up to today, Chapman has struggled to keep the off-field drama from bleeding into his on-field performance. Which may be why the most important thing to understand about Aroldis Chapman isn’t how good he can be—it’s how quickly he can fall apart."

And I'd like you to find one example in that article of Chapman "falling apart quickly." I'd like you to find one piece of evidence in that article that his off-field "dramas" ever "bled" into his on-field performance.

What do we have?

one bad start against Japan in the WBC, not linked in any way to off-field dramas.

wild rumors (which we largely ridiculed) that he was going to be signed for $50-60 M but in fact he signed for only $30 M.

he actually had some bad outings in 2012, not linked by the author in any way to off-field dramas.

Concerning the pre-contract period: "Then, at the end of the Boston trip, Chapman and José headed to a dance club for a Halloween party, where Chapman proceeded to drape his arms around lingerie-clad waitresses and pose for pictures—which were later uploaded to Facebook by one of Mejia’s underlings."

Oh no! Not putting his arm around lingerie-clad waitresses! Please, something more shocking happens every time Britney Spears steps out of a car.

OK, so the kid is a problem because pictures of him being a kid end up on the internet, uploaded by one of his agent's assistants. He dumps that guy for one of the top sports agencies. The author then claims:

But the abrupt way Chapman abandoned his original management—and by extension, his friend José—caused many in baseball to question his maturity. Indeed, two sources claim that both the Yankees and the Red Sox chose not to bid on Chapman for precisely that reason. “From then on,” says one baseball insider, “they had no interest in pursuing him.”

Really? The Yanks would rather deal with Mejia than Hendricks? I find that very hard to believe. Heck, one of the main "themes" of the article (not that these exist) is Chapman's questionable choices in hangers-on yet whenever he makes what seems like a very sensible choice is also evidence of his immaturity.

Not a fact. An allegation from two people that the Yankees and Sox shied away from him ... and not for temperament reasons but for changing agents. There's no claim that other big market teams shied away from him.

There's a few paragraphs on how the Reds took extra steps -- assigning Tony Fossas and the Louisville trainer to translate for him and look out for him -- to help him adjust. That's consistent with their later behavior in not cooperating in helping this guy dig up dirt on Chapman.

A favorite bit and a classic journalistic trick:

The Reds decided to start Chapman in Triple-A, as a member of the Louisville Bats rotation. He struck his teammates there as humble and sweet-natured—someone they describe as “a good dude,” “a really likeable guy,” and “just a regular guy”—but they couldn’t help noticing how irritated he was at being in the minors.

Interesting no? He uses actual quotes about the positive perception of Chapman but chooses to paraphrase the negative. This means nobody gave him a good quote and therefore we should not trust his paraphrasing at all.

Now, here the reporter does provide some info (with quotes!) on problems with Chapman's performance in AAA:

Chapman’s starts came with their own kind of drama. “We knew we were going to be out on the field for a while,” says someone who played defense behind him. Chapman worked haltingly—and even more so once his opponents notched a few hits or walks. “Teams knew that when they started to string together some good at-bats he would give up,” says another teammate, and Chapman would respond by hanging his head or even slowing his fastball down into the low 80s. “There’s an attention span that is necessary to be an elite starter,” a third player says. “Aroldis gave you the impression every once in a while, sometimes in the third or fourth inning, that he might be out to lunch.”

But how does this relate to his off-field behavior? From the very next paragraph:

None of this diminished Chapman’s celebrity. Autograph seekers would stake out the Lamborghini, which was easy to spot in a player parking lot typically populated by Ford pickups and tricked-out Escalades. But Chapman also helped out his teammates. Some wanted autographs of their own, and Chapman occasionally sprang for team-sized spreads of Cuban food. He even gave Wilkin Castillo, his car-less catcher, frequent rides to the stadium.

So, nice guy apparently. Notice the clever use of "but." Apparently being popular and driving a Lamborghini rather than a tricked-out Escalade is "bad" BUT he's also a nice guy. Alas, another sign of bad character:

While most of the Bats lived a couple miles from the stadium, Chapman chose an apartment more than 30 miles away.

Now, I've only been to Louisville once in my life and that was 20 years ago. I was not impressed but it did seem like there were some quite nice places on the outskirts. Also, did he by some chance live in a place about halfway between Louisville and Cincy?

Oh-oh, another terrible Chapman faux-pas:

Not long after arriving [in the majors], the veterans planned some gentle hazing—forcing the rookies to dress as a naughty nurse, a sexy cowgirl, and so on, while they served drinks on a team flight. But Chapman wouldn’t do it, even after Vera, who had also moved to Cincinnati, insisted it was simply a wacky tradition. “He just refused,” one major-league teammate says. “Guys got kind of upset about that.”

Somehow, watching Chapman was even more impressive than his numbers. I reviewed every one of his saves (38) and blown saves (5) from 2012, and the weird thing is, you can’t tell a difference. Not in his appearance, at least. Chapman’s no longer the guy who threw a tantrum against Japan and drove his Louisville defenders nuts.

But I thought he was risky and fragile.

He’s remade himself, becoming not so much unflappable as simply detached.

And the writer can tell the difference.

Take a game last June, against the Astros: Chapman secured the save in an astounding 3 minutes, 54 seconds. He needed 13 pitches to strike out the side. Yet his demeanor never changed

Was he supposed to engage in an immature celebration?

Where you could find evidence of the good and the bad was in the numbers. He went on long streaks where every opponent looked like the Astros, but he also went on streaks where he completely fell apart. Oddly, those streaks never overlapped

Another brilliant sentence!

In 2012, Chapman toggled between amazing and awful like a light switch. In fact, his season can be divided into four tidy sections: From Opening Day through June 6 (let’s call it Streak A), he threw 29 dominant innings: no runs, nine walks, 52 strikeouts. But from June 7 through June 24 (Streak B), Chapman struggled: 6.1 innings, eight runs, four losses. The double somersault? Chapman meant it to mark the end of that swoon, and it did: from June 26 to September 4 he threw 30.2 innings with one run, 6 walks, and 56 strikeouts (Streak C). But the end of the season saw him slip again: more runs, more walks, even a long period where the Reds shut him down (Streak D).

I see, so we can divide his enigmatic season into the 2 months when he was amazing followed by 2 weeks when he was bad followed by 2.5 months when he was amazing followed by 3 weeks when he was bad. I've never seen anything like it before.

This analysis may seem unfair; after all, no pitcher has ever kept up Streak A or Streak C levels for an entire season. But given what is known about Chapman’s makeup—that he can get rattled, distracted, derailed—it seems important to note that his season was forcefully shaped by momentum.

The author means "given what I have invented about Chapman's makeup". Notice the nice use of "forcefully".

“Selective endpoints are a classic danger in analysis,” Pavlidis says. “Still, some things did pop up.” When Chapman was at his best, during Streaks A and C, hitters would swing and miss at his fastball 40 percent of the time. “That’s insane,” Pavlidis says, “just crazy.” During Streaks B and D, however, that percentage fell into the 20s (though for relievers that’s still considered good).

This pattern repeated with other arcane measures—Chapman’s ability to get groundballs with his fastball, the outcome of his two-strike sliders—and always switched with the various streaks. According to multiple forms of evidence, then, Chapman became a markedly different player during the two types of streak. “And that,” Pavlidis admits, “is really curious.”

That's not curious at all. That's how player ups and downs go. Gee, the period when he was getting only half as many swinging strikes, when his control was off and when he was getting his pitches up in the zone coincides with the period when he was hit harder.

If you buy the theory that Chapman is a fragile player, then you should worry about his non-baseball activities. Because they were 2012’s other big revelation.

Theory? I thought this was "well-known", maybe even a "fact."

But later that night, a police officer in Grove City, Ohio, clocked his Mercedes S63 hurtling 93 miles an hour up I-71. When the officer punched Chapman’s license into police databases, it came back suspended. Chapman, as a report in CityBeat would later reveal, had received five additional speeding tickets, including a 95-in-a-55 during the offseason in Miami.

Dude drives a Lambo and a Merc. He should invest in a radar detector. Anyway, as athlete criminality goes, this is very tame stuff.

Chapman ended up getting handcuffed, photographed, and released on bail.

Relevance? I mean the prejudicial language. An unbiased report summarises this all in one sentence: "Later that night, Chapman was stopped for speeding and arrested for driving on a suspended license and unpaid speeding tickets." This is drawn out to an entire paragraph and he's nothing but a perp by the end of it.

A squad car camera captured the pitcher and the officer struggling to understand each other: “Me going to airport,” Chapman can be heard saying.

Relevance?

Manrique had met Chapman earlier that spring, possibly during an April series between the Reds and the Washington Nationals. She started accompanying Chapman on the road, and on May 29, Manrique stayed in his hotel room in Pittsburgh while the Reds played the Pirates. The game went late, thanks to a rain delay, and around 10 p.m. Manrique stumbled into the hotel hallway, partially undressed, shrieking about a robbery.

Did you pick up on the key piece of info there? Chapman wasn't there, he was at the ballpark. Presumably he'd been at the ballpark since, what, 4pm at the latest. So he's another young, wealthy, under-educated guy who hooked up with a crazy stripper.

It was a story full of holes—how, for instance, did the man know a bag was hidden in the drawer, much less know its brand?—and according to the police report, Manrique changed it multiple times.

Relevant to Chapman how?

Chapman, for his part, told police he thought Manrique was in on the crime, and that’s what most media reported. Still, why would a thief with an accomplice leave behind that Louis Vuitton Bag, especially when it contained more than $200,000 in jewelry? Instead, the man took only $6,000 in belongings from the room. In the end, Manrique indicated to detectives that she thought she knew who was behind the robbery and that she may have been the target. But the thief was never caught and Chapman declined to press charges. According to Diane Richard, a public information officer for Pittsburgh’s Bureau of Police, “it appeared that Mr. Chapman just wanted this incident to be concluded.” All the detectives could do was charge Manrique with filing a falsified report. (She eventually pled guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct and paid a $164 fine.)

What the hell are we supposed to read into this? Note the clever use of that second sentence. Chapman, not there at the time of the crime, says he thinks she may have been part of the theft of $6,000 of stuff. "STILL" why would a thief ... Nice way to imply there's something fishy about Chapman's role in all of this.

And “it appeared that Mr. Chapman just wanted this incident to be concluded.” Yet another sign of mature behavior on Chapman's part.

The Reds pitcher got one more piece of bad news last summer: He was being sued for $24 million.

That is bad news but it relates to Chapman behavior from 5+ years ago. This suit is an unusual one -- I will let the lawyers comment. But basically Chapman got caught the first time he tried to defect. He blamed it on a couple of other people -- at best he ratted on the guys to save his own skin, at worst he made #### up to save his own skin. Being Cuba, these guys have been imprisoned and generally ###### over.

Now Curbelo Garcia and Mena Perdomo are suing Chapman in U.S. District Court under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act. Their lawsuit alleges that Chapman made up his testimony in order to regain a spot on the Cuban national team, and that his false testimony led to their imprisonment.

Who knew you could be sued for that? I can only imagine how many US emigres from Cuba, China, the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes also have such skeletons in their closet ... and they can be sued?

Anyway, this is a potentially interesting story. And if Chapman sold these guys out, he was an ####### -- although, contrary to the tone of the article, an ####### making the "mature" decision of saving his own skin. But how does it relate to his performance?

Miami is, of course, the pitcher’s adopted home. In 2011, he bought a $1.8 million Mediterranean-style mansion with a five-car garage. But the house isn’t in Little Havana or on the beach; it’s in Davie, a not-too-trendy suburb. And locals gossip about Chapman going out and running up huge tabs at less-than-hot places like Off the Hookah, a touristy club that sits next to a Hard Rock Café and serves $10 burgers and $12 shish kebabs.

Yet another contender for stupidest paragraph of the year. Living in the not-too-trendy suburb is ... bad? immature? enigmatic? Running up tabs at "hot" places would be ... good? mature? understandable?

And really a "huge" tab at a place that serves $12 kebabs? (The standard price of such a beastie, with fries and drink, in Australia is $12.) He could eat there for a month for probably less than the tab he ran up in one night at a strip club.

So the problem is that he's gone from a flamboyant Lambo driver to hanging out in the tackier parts of Miami?

It’s one of many reasons why those in Miami can’t figure Chapman out. Jorge Ebro, who covers sports for El Nuevo Herald, one of the city’s two Spanish-language newspapers, says Chapman is quite popular as a player but he hasn’t become a local figure like fellow Cubans Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez and Alexei Ramirez. “They live here and they do things for the people in Miami,” says Ebro. “We don’t see that from Chapman. Maybe he does, but we don’t see it.”

Dear people of Miami, I think I may have Chapman figured out for you. He's a rich guy who likes his privacy and doesn't give to charity. I hope that's a load off your mind so you can go back to worrying about more important things.

All of these factors contribute to Chapman’s paradoxical mindset. It’s why he could tell a reporter that “Life here has shown me you can’t trust anybody,” only to start dating (and to some degree, trusting) Claudia Manrique a few weeks later.

This is evidence of his "paraoxical mindset" -- a mindset evidenced by virtually no quotes from Chapman? And "to some degree, trusting" -- according to this very article, he accused her of stealing from him about 6 weeks into their relationship, that doesn't sound very trusting.

There are plenty of rumors about Chapman chasing women other than Manrique.

Oh no!

Are there babes hanging out at Off the Hookah? Cuz he apparently isn't spending time meeting women in the "hot" spots of Miami.

And he continues to make baffling choices. He’s the guy who remembers to update his vanity plates—his cars have featured “MPH102,” “MPH104,” and “MPH105”—but not to pay his speeding tickets on time.

The stupid just doesn't stop.

While the Reds won’t comment on Chapman’s speeding tickets or lawsuits

What are they supposed to say?

And his big-league teammates seem to like him. Francisco Cordero even trusts Chapman enough to rent him his Cincinnati house during the season. “I don’t even think about it twice,” says the ex-Red. From time to time the team will allude to concerns about Chapman’s lifestyle. During spring training last year, Dusty Baker suggested that 2011 had been something of a lost season for Chapman because of “Cuban family stuff.” The Reds manager continued: “Sometimes when he’s not here mentally, you don’t know where he is.”

Is "Cuban family stuff" really a "lifestyle" concern? Since elsewhere in the article, the reporter strongly implies that Chapman has done nothing for his Cuban family, what "Cuban family stuff" is Baker talking about? Did the reporter ask? Has Chapman been helping his family in Cuba? Trying to get them out?

[On the planned move to the rotation] Chapman will have to improve on his emotional volatility and streakiness.

Again, the author himself claimed that Chapman already is a changed man, that he is "detached" not volatile, that you couldn't tell from his demeanor when he was doing well and when not. And whoever heard of starting pitchers being streaky?

And when it comes to his time away from the ballpark, the Reds appear to know about as much as the rest of us. The home team’s locker room at Great American Ball Park is a big open space, with wooden lockers lining the walls and clusters of couches in the middle. When Chapman first showed up, in 2010, he stayed close to his locker. After a while, he started hanging around the couches occupied by the team’s other Latin American players, teasing, joking, trying to fit in. But at some point, Chapman quietly gravitated back to his locker. It may be a good thing—a case of the team getting more comfortable with him and him getting more comfortable with his true self. And yet it also looks a lot like Chapman being stoic on the mound; or living alone, 30 miles outside Louisville; or frequenting a kitschy hookah bar in Miami. It looks, in other words, like a barrier, a way to retreat—another way for Chapman to remain unknowable.

Go ahead -- decipher that paragraph. Find an issue. Find evidence of his instablity. Find evidence of his "riskiness" and "fragility". Find evidence that his off-field "dramas" affect his on-field performance.

Notice the lovely little journalistic tricks. In 2010, he stayed close to his locker -- unsourced. [that was his first month in the majors by the way]. In 2011, he hung out with the other Latin players -- unsourced. In 2012, back to the locker -- unsourced. Did several people tell the author this or one or two? Based on the article Cordero seems to have taken a liking to him ... but Cordero wasn't there in 2012. Was that part of it?

Is anything in it factually incorrect? No, not as near as I can tell other than the assertion that the author's views of Chapman's makeup are "fact" and "well-known". But 50% of it is non-factual and the 50% of it that is factual tells us nothing about Chapman's "risk" and "fragility" much less how any of it relates to his on-field performance. Every fact is intentionally spun to make Chapman look as bad as possible. The "meaning" of many of the facts seems to contradict the "meaning" of many of the other facts.

Sure, like lots of young, rich athletes, Chapman is sometimes behaving in immature ways. But when he behaves in seemingly mature ways, this is taken as a negative sign of not fitting in. It sounds like several people in his life have tried to take advantage of him or at least financially benefit from the relationship -- alas, not uncommon for young, rich athletes. The guy starts off by suggesting the Reds are trying to hide something but points out the help they've given him in the transition and even writes "they seem to be doing as much as they can to help him settle down." So are the Reds villains or not?

And as #3 points out, the thing is just plain written badly with no coherent theme.

My guess is the guy got hired to write a piece on Chapman, ended up with nothing to write, went with the "enigma" angle.

He could still turn out fine, short-term and long-term, but it takes more than talent,

Does it? OK, it takes performance not talent. That nitpick aside, baseball has had no problem with talented wife-beaters, drunk drivers, cokeheads, prosletysers, divorced guys, philandering guys, guys dating strippers, guys losing money left and right, not to mention run-of-the-mill ########. Chapman's career is surely 100 times more likely to be derailed by injury than by personality issues.

Not nominating the article for a Pulitzer, but it seems legitimate to point to out that Chapman's multiple speeding tickets, driving on a suspended license, questionable choice in women, spending habits, and associations may raise some issues. Is he the only guy who signs for $30M (or less!) that has such issues -- hell no, but that doesn't mean the topic should be forbidden. It's not like the author said Chapman is doomed, just that he has some maturity issues. Some folks take care of those issues as they get older, some don't.

Does anyone know if this publication or author has a rep as being biased against the Reds or Chapman? I thought the article was interesting and had already understood there to be fire associated with this smoke -- but had noticed loaded phrasing / construction as well.

I have to agree with Howie @ 11. The most disturbing part of this is 1) that anyone would think Kehoskie's a reliable source and 2) Walt's rather disturbing need to make sure everyone thinks this article is crap.

Now, I've only been to Louisville once in my life and that was 20 years ago. I was not impressed but it did seem like there were some quite nice places on the outskirts. Also, did he by some chance live in a place about halfway between Louisville and Cincy?

There's pretty much nothing about halfway between Louisville and Cincinnati. Louisville has some decent neighborhoods on the edge of town, but thirty miles puts you well beyond the edge of town. I'm trying to imagine what a Cuban millionaire in his early 20s would see in a place like LaGrange (the DW Griffith home probably doesn't have much appeal) or Shelbyville (maybe he's a big Simpsons fan), and I'm having trouble determining anything that might be a positive.

Chapman sounds like the kind of guy who would've been nicknamed 'Rube' a hundred years ago.